The present invention relates generally to the field of semiconductor devices and, more particularly, to the field of forming low resistance ohmic contacts on indium phosphide (InP).
Low resistance ohmic contacts are a required integral part of many solid state devices and circuits. However, semiconductors are often difficult to contact in this way. Ohmic contacts are of critical importance to modern electronic components and circuits. Indium phosphide in particular is a highly promising semiconductor for future high speed electronics. P-type indium phosphide is an example of a material for which many attempts using a variety of metal combinations and annealing cycles have been used in the past to achieve suitably low resistance contacts. Particularly with compound semiconductors, annealing at other than quite low temperatures is generally considered undesirable due to the possible loss of the more volatile component during the thermal exposure, and thus severe restrictions are placed upon useable annealing cycles.